Amazon.com video review:
Some critics and filmgoers have hailed this 1989 comedy-drama as
Woody Allen's best film, and while that's certainly open for debate, a good
case can be made that it's the most ambitious and morally complex of
Allen's films. It's the kind of movie that provokes heated philosophical
debate about the role of God in our lives, the nature of guilt, and the
circumstances that would allow a seemingly good, law-abiding family man and
successful professional (Martin Landau) to commit a murder with no risk of
being caught. Could you live with yourself under those conditions? Allen
explores this complicated issue in the context of an extramarital affair
that Landau's mistress (Anjelica Huston) threatens to expose, while
developing a second story about a documentary filmmaker (Allen) who
reluctantly makes a film about his brother-in-law (Alan Alda), a TV sitcom
producer whose vanity is seemingly unlimited. From serious crimes to
misdemeanors of personal behavior, Allen ties these stories together to
create a provocative and unsettling study of divergent moralities and the
price we're willing to pay to preserve our personal comfort and happiness.
It's a sobering film, but a fascinating and funny one as well, unfolding
like a thriller in which the question is not whodunit but rather, would
you do it if you knew you could get away with it? --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com video review:
Along with Deconstructing
Harry which would follow seven years later, this is Woody
Allen's most somber comedy-drama, as well as his most ambitious film
of the 1980s. Allen weaves together two central stories about very
different groups of Manhattanites, linking them through a mutual
friend, a rabbi (Sam Waterston) who's going blind. This image is key
to the sometimes ponderous, often clever musings on faith, morals, and
vision (or lack thereof) that obsess his deeply troubled and unhappy
characters. At its center, the film explores people who, through lack
of religious conviction or arrogance, rationalize their awful, selfish
acts by presuming that God couldn't possibly be watching.
The central story--a neo-noir of sorts--follows a fortuitous
ophthalmologist (Martin Landau, all sweat and grimaces) who faces the
prospect of his obsessed mistress (Anjelica Huston) ruining his life
by telling his family of their affair. Desperate, the doctor hires his
slimy criminal brother (Jerry Orbach) to eliminate the situation, and
then suffers overwhelming regret afterwards. The flip tale is more
typical Allen. Funnier and lighter, it focuses on an impossible
romance between Allen's character and Halley Reed, a film producer
played by Mia Farrow. Between Allen and his Hollywood fantasy stands
his brother-in-law (Alan Alda, perfectly cast as an obnoxious,
successful sitcom producer), who also desires Halley. Allen is
Landau's opposite: an honest, struggling documentarian who cares
nothing about fortune, suffers in a loveless marriage, and is
surrounded by triumphant phonies. The nice-guys-finish-last moral may
be as contrived as it is devastating. Yet, when Landau and Allen
finally share a final scene during a wedding, their faces, subtle body
movements, and contrasting fortunes somehow suggest that indeed God
may be blind, and if not, the deity has a very sick sense of
humor. --Dave McCoy
